Don’t Burn The Tool- Detterbeck Enterprises Cartoon

If a tool gets too hot to hold while grinding, you have already ruined it. You knew that, right?

A bit of circa 1965 “Knowledge Retention” from the archives of Lester Detterbeck Enterprises Ltd.

By the time the heat gets to your hands and is too hot to hold, you have already lost the temper on the edge being ground. If you then put it in water to cool it down, depending on the material grade, the water quench is likely to help form untempered martensite, a very brittle microstructure.

The tool will lose properties, and fail in very short order. Often with catastrophic consequences.

The point of grinding is to take very small amounts of removal by abrasion, not to create lots of heat by hogging the material off.

Welcome to our blog, Speaking of Precision. As Director of Technology and Industry Research for PMPA, I bring 38 years of hands-on experience in areas of manufacturing, quality and steelmaking. I help answer "HOW?","WITH WHAT?" and "REALLY?"